WCA July 2007

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Industry News
14 Wire & Cable ASIA – July/August 2007
Cables 2007 discusses
current issues
The 7 th Applied Market Information
(AMI) international conference on
Cables was hailed a big success.
The event, at the Maritim Hotel in
Cologne, Germany, in March heard
Kerry Satterthwaite (AMI) give an
excellent overview of the European
cable industry. Around 2% of the
plastics processors in Europe are cable
producers and polymer consumption
varies in different geographic regions,
despite EU efforts to harmonise the
industry.
A primary focus of the conference was
the new European Construction
Products Directive – wires and cables
are now considered building materials.
This new legislation classifies cables
by their fire safety performance and
the testing protocols are still being
worked out as described by Terry
Journeaux, of Prysmian Cables &
Systems. The problem is to develop
repeatable and reproducible standards
so that accredited laboratories all
give the same fire classification for the
same cables.
There is a lot of cable in modern
buildings and as electrical failure is a
common cause of ignition, cable
fire performance can be critical.
David Kiddoo, of AlphaGary, gave a
spectacular presentation including live
video clips of cable fire testing to
different safety standards, from the
Steiner Tunnel to the riser cable test.
He commented on combustion toxicity,
a topic also addressed by Dr Rick
Whiteley. Dow Corning has also been
carrying out fire testing – on a variety of
new compounds under development.
Vivien Kilian (Albermarle) examined
trends in automotive wire and cable.
Materials differ in different global
regions and include PVC, or XLPE and
PP with flame retardants.
The paper examined potential future
trends in flame retardants.
Elastogran has TPU materials for cable
applications – around 50% of use is in
automotive applications where the
company has worked on flat cable
technology for automated installation.
PolyOne has examined the hot oil
resistance of compounds for appli-
cations such as railways, offshore,
marine, military and machinery.
The key application discussed by
Borealis was data cable, a sector driven
by the rapid growth in IT and
communications systems. The trend is
to install as advanced a cable as
possible to anticipate demand. There
are issues with ‘crosstalk’ between
cables and this requires the development
of new test protocols and standards.
New materials for cables were
introduced at the conference including
metallocene-based elastomers (Exxon
Mobil), elastomer modified poly-
phenylene sulphide for high
temperature wire coating (Chevron
Phillips Chemicals), halogen-free flame
retardant compounds (AlphaGary,
Arkema and Budenheim), electron
beam cured elastomers (Lanxess),
coupling agents for halogen-free
polyolefins (DuPont de Nemours) and
silanes for faster crosslinking of PE
(Degussa). Dow Wire & Cable is
working on new semi-conductive
compounds to speed up production.
Herbert Baur talked about the design
of bedding compounds, which lie
between the insulating compound and
the cable sheath. Compatibility is
important and factors such as
plasticiser migration have been studied
as it can have a major effect on long-
term performance.
Dr Gunter Beyer, of Kabelwerk Eupen,
has been working on nanocomposite
flame retardants for the cable industry.
In his experience, layered double
hydroxides have a major synergistic
effect with halogen and non-halogen
flame retardants. They appear to act by
altering the degradation pathway and
imparting barrier properties.
Cables 2008 is moving to a larger
capacity conference hall and has been
scheduled for 3 rd-5th March 2008 in the
Maritim Hotel, Cologne, Germany.
Cables 2007 – UK
Fax : +44 117 311 1534
Email:
Website:
Guests at Cables 2007 ▲
RAD-CON Restructuring
RAD-CON, Inc, USA, a manufacturer of industrial heat processing equipment,
has announced a management reorganisation and ownership change.
David Blackman has taken over the position of president from Brice Blackman,
who has retired after 25 years’ service. Day-to-day operations will be managed
by vice presidents Christopher Messina and Michael McDonald, who have
also acquired Brice Blackman’s shares, and Chris Williams and Arno Muennich
have been promoted to engineering directors.
RAD-CON Inc – USA Fax : +1 440 871 2948
Email: Website: